Obama Ignores Nullification, Says Federal Agents Will Enforce Obamacare

From: Freedom Outpost

 

by - Tim Brown - March 25, 2013

 

In a move that is reminiscent of the tyrannical actions of Abraham Lincoln that led to the War of Northern Aggression, Barack Obama says that he will not wait on states to enforce Obamacare. Instead his administration has announced its intent is to completely disregard the state’s Tenth Amendment rights to nullification of the Obamacare law, via their passed legislation and state constitutions. In fact, his administration has said that in states where they refuse to comply with federal healthcare mandates that agents from the Department of Health and Human Services will assume absolute control over the state’s health insurance industry.

Politico reports,

Insurance regulation is a huge responsibility that’s been closely guarded by the states. That’s why the Obama administration and those closely watching the rollout of Obamacare believe that even states that have sworn off the law’s coverage expansions will still enforce its new measures — including new benefit mandates, cost-sharing guidelines and rules on how insurers rate customers — to retain control over their health insurance markets.

But the feds will be overseeing the health care law in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming after those states told HHS they couldn’t or wouldn’t implement the new rules.

“We are enforcing because Oklahoma notified … that it has not enacted legislation to enforce or that it is otherwise not enforcing the Affordable Care Act market reform provisions,” Gary Cohen, director of the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, wrote to the Oklahoma Insurance Department on Friday. Officials in Missouri, Texas and Wyoming received similar letters, an agency spokeswoman said.

The enforcement letters come a little more than a month after a Commonwealth Fund report found just 11 states and Washington had started to adjust state laws to prepare for seven major ACA insurance reforms taking effect in 2014.

In a statement by Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak he said, “It is unfortunate that health insurers are being forced into a system of dual regulation by the overreaching Obama administration. My position on this has never wavered, and I welcome every opportunity to try to overturn Obamacare.”

In a letter sent to Cohen, it was clearly stated that the Oklahoma Insurance Department does not have the authority to enforce federal law.

“The Oklahoma Insurance Department regulates the health insurance policies sold in the state and responds to consumer questions and complaints. Our consumer assistance team receives over 30,000 phone calls and our website receives over 1,000,000 visits each year,” the letter said.

“We will continue to serve these consumers by adhering to our duties under the State Constitution and Statutes. The consumers are the ones who are going to bear the costs of these unnecessary federal regulatory burdens.”

The Tulsa World reports:

Meanwhile, health insurance companies doing business in Oklahoma are receiving letters from Cohen telling them that enforcement of the law’s requirements will be handled by the federal agency. A state health insurance trade group said the additional level of regulation is troubling.

 

“The Oklahoma Association of Health Plans’ members are very concerned about the impact dual regulations will have on administrative expenses and premiums paid by our consumers,” said Executive Director Laura Brookins.

Essentially, health coverage that will be sold through a federally run health insurance exchange starting next year will be regulated by the federal government, but coverage outside the exchange — sold by the same companies — will face different rules, forms and officials.

“Unfortunately for everyone, this dual oversight process will result in increased costs for all Oklahoma health plans,” Brookins said.

Doaks warns that this additional level of regulation, or duplicate regulatory scheme will result in increased costs to the consumer. “Oklahomans should be alarmed,” he said.

Deputy insurance Commissioner Mike Rhoads says the two regulatory structures will simply make things needlessly confusing. “Since statehood we’ve been doing this and frankly we’re the … experts in the regulatory matters,” Rhoads said. “I’m not going to say that they can’t do it, but they damned sure can’t do it as efficiently as we can.”

Joe Wolverton at The New American writes,

When it was informed that Oklahoma would not — in fact, legally could not — comply with ObamaCare mandates, HHS was not deterred, proposing instead the establishment of a “collaborative enforcement arrangement.” This deal would permit the feds to force ObamaCare on Oklahomans while allowing the Oklahoma Insurance Department (OID) to ostensibly keep its hands clean.

As if that weren’t insulting enough, included in the cache of documents provided to The New American was the letter mentioned above that was sent to Oklahoma insurance companies from HHS informing them that since Oklahoma cannot or will not enforce the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), this responsibility has been assumed by CMS.

Furthermore, as part of its oversight, CMS demands in the letter that insurance companies “submit all group and individual health insurance policy forms, certificates, riders, endorsements, and amendments, as well as any other requested material pertinent to the market reforms of the Affordable Care Act to CMS for review.”

Then, lest insurance companies in Oklahoma doubt who’s in charge of healthcare in the Sooner State, the letter declares that “a filing with the Oklahoma Insurance Department does not constitute a filing with CMS for these purposes.”

In other words, the Obama administration could care less about the boundaries of the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment or anything else regarding the law. They believe they are above the law and will seek to force unlawful laws upon a law abiding people. This is a tyrannical Federal government that is seeking to usurp state constitutions and the will of the people in those states, including nullification legislation that has passed through state legislatures.


God bless,

JohnnyD

The Uninformed Voter-Ignorance Runs Deep and Wide

From: Patriot Update

by Ralph Barker - March 26, 2013

(They can destroy your future)

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance -Laurence J. Peter

Don’t believe for a second that the ignorance of others doesn’t threaten your well being. Your future is in their hands. The growing mass of ignorant voters has become an invisible majority that elects leaders who will keep them, and you, on the plantation. They simply don’t know any better. By default, they are useful idiots who pose an imminent danger for us all.

Laurence Peter’s quotation above is so true. How do you fight ignorance? How do you win over a person who has no knowledge of the issue you discuss, but is willing to almost kill you over it? This is a very common occurrence when talking politics or religion. Emotion rules! Logic is not allowed!

In America today, ignorance abounds. Ignorance is like a dew of obliviousness that blankets our land. It’s so pervasive it smothers those who actually know what is going on in the world.

Many times, armed with facts and logic, I have engaged someone over an issue. The result has often been to be rebuffed and attacked with hostile emotion backed by nothing but ignorance. Apparently, people who fit this description are now the majority of voters. This is terribly sad and incredibly dangerous to America’s future. I hate to appeal to dead men, but what would Jefferson, Franklin, and Hancock think?

There is a big difference between stupid and ignorance, too. It is possible to fix ignorance, but it is difficult to do. You can’t fix stupid. Therefore, its not a good use of time or effort trying to capture the stupid vote.

We have to use our resources to convert the ignorant. This is an uphill battle with the current state of public education, media propaganda, and a stable full of lying politicians (yes there are some great exceptions, but few). How do we, the little people, overcome such massive obstacles?

Benjamin Franklin said, “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.” He’s right and we are currently paying a big price for what now is the norm among too many voters. They don’t know the issues. They are uninformed, but ready to vote for their man or woman for all the wrong reasons. I honestly don’t care whether President Obama is black or not, but millions do and they voted for him for no other reason. In the video below, you will witness this attitude.

Let me share just a couple of examples of the ignorance that roams our land. Recently, Jimmy Kimmel did a street interview segment on his television show called “The confusing question of the day.” His objective was to see what the average American knew about the sequester issue. You can watch the video of the interviews here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gXOV_XWJck. I guess in the name of full disclosure I should mention these interviewees are from California. Oh well! What starts there comes to your hometown soon.

The result of the interviews was that no one knew what sequester was but had definite opinions on it. The question was phrased thusly: “What do you think about Obama pardoning the sequester and sending it to Portugal?” After I watched this, I wanted to turn off the lights and hide. These are American adults that are free to roam and reproduce. Please send the Zombies at least I can shoot them! I guess I can. Is that legal?

A National Geographic survey conducted in 2005 revealed: …Displaying even greater ignorance, when asked to find ten U.S. states on the map, only 89 percent could find Texas and California and only 51 percent could locate New York. When asked to locate sixteen countries on a world map, these geographic ‘wide-awakes’ could only find seven of the sixteen. Twenty nine percent couldn’t find the diminutive PACIFIC OCEAN! Eleven percent couldn’t even find their own country, the UNITED STATES on the world map! These kids will soon receive the right to vote. That should scare the hell out of you.

The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.” I might be in trouble. I can’t name but one Simpson. Does OJ count?

On August 26, 2010, the Examiner.com reported, By far the greatest threat to U.S. national security is the willful unapologetic ignorance of the average American citizen. The average American tends to not care about everything that does not affect them directly. It is a worldwide recognizable trait that all other people of the world seem to know except Americans.

There is another segment of our population that displays another form of ignorance that adds to the problem. The Christian community is infested with several dynamics that contribute to the demise of our country.

First, a very large group of Christians from many denominations are obsessed with the end times. Prophecy-oriented preachers and writers like Tim Lahaye and Hal Lindsey have earned tens of millions of dollars raising the “end times” alarm. The result of this has been to paralyze a large part of the Christian voting block.

This is true because some are convinced Jesus’ return is imminent so why get involved. Some are convinced that politics is dirty so they shouldn’t vote. And others are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good. Combined, these dropouts give elections to the bad guys. I won’t even explore the fact that millions of Christians vote for the bad guys. Go figure that one out.

Finally, when you discover what Americans don’t know about the U.S. Constitution, including those in Congress, it’s depressing. Constitutional studies are rarely taught in schools anymore except in passing. Yet, in some cases, teachers spend up to three weeks teaching Sharia law! God help us.

So, what’s the answer to all of this? Again, it is education, but the powers that be in this country including the NEA, our politicians, and liberal groups are against it. If people understood the issues it would threaten those in power. They rely on our ignorance.

I seem to return to the same point over time. God is in control. We get what we deserve. God can save us if He will. The state won’t. The state can’t.

Two powerful thoughts from the Scriptures:

Hosea 4:6: My people perish for a lack of knowledge
Proverbs 9:11: But through knowledge the righteous will be delivered


God bless,
JohnnyD

Why Harry Reid is ashamed of the Senate budget

From: Americans for Limited Government

 

By Rick Manning – March 26, 2013

 

Hell must have frozen over this past weekend as the U.S. Senate broke a four year record of intransigence and failure as it unleashed a blizzard of votes that culminated with the passage of a budget document that reveals the plans and priorities of the 50 Democrats who supported it.

It was no mistake that the big reveal by Senate Democrats was that they had no plan whatsoever to ever bring the budget into balance came on Friday evening going into pre-dawn Saturday morning.  Harry Reid and crew clearly were embarrassed by their budget and hoped to avoid widespread media coverage by scheduling votes when they would receive the least amount of attention.

Ironically, Democrat Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) actually had the audacity to complain that it was irresponsible for the Senate to be considering major foreign policy decisions at 3 am on Saturday, referring to a budget amendment that passed putting the Senate on record as opposing the United Nations Small Arms Treaty which the Obama Administration is currently negotiating.

Menendez’s complaint should have been with Majority Leader Reid who deliberately scheduled the vote-a-thon in the wee hours of the morning to keep the results cloaked from real time reporting as much as possible.

But the rationale behind Reid’s Hide the Budget Act makes perfect sense.

The Senate Democrats claimed that their budget was “balanced” a grand total of 230 times as noted by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) in spite of their voting for a budget that never even gets close to balance.

In spite of these rhetorical claims, every Democrat Senator with the exception of West Virginia’s Joe Manchin voted against sending the budget back to Committee with instructions that it balance within ten years.  The motion to recommit by Sessions was defeated by a 46–53 margin with Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) not voting.

The significance of this admission by 53 Democrat Senators — 50 of whom voted for final passage of the budget — that they have no intention of ever bringing the budget to balance cannot be overstated.

No matter their orchestrated protestations to the contrary, and their attempts to spin the American people by perverting the definition of balancing the budget, their votes do not lie. The budget that was passed by the Senate Democrats creates $7.3 trillion in new debt over the next ten years despite a $1.5 trillion tax increase.

It immediately increases the budget deficit and grows federal government spending by 60 percent over the next ten years.  Even more stunning, the growth of means-tested spending increases by 80 percent — i.e spending on those who are the poorest amongst us.

This last point is a bald admission that the Democrats who voted for this budget do not believe that their big government policies will work. Nor do they think their budget will grow the economy or ween people away from government dependency, but instead they project that the very dependency that sucks the self-respect from the least of these, will dramatically increase. Incredibly, the Senate Democrats actually budgeted for the failure of their policies.

To put an exclamation point on the devastating impact that the Senate Democrat vision for federal government taxing and spending would have on American’s who want a job, the Heritage Foundation found that if passed into law, it would cost our nation an average of 853,000 jobs per year for the next ten years.

That’s 8.5 million jobs that either won’t be created or would go away entirely if the Senate Democrats’ vision for America became a reality.

That’s 8.5 million Americans consigned to perpetual dependency rather than developing the kind of sustainable careers that our nation’s workers have traditionally been able to depend upon.

That’s 8.5 million disappointments, tears and putting off a vibrant future for another day as American workers are stuck in a cycle of Democrat Senate induced dependency rather than being able to stand on their own two feet to determine their own futures based upon their ability and hard work.

That’s simply unacceptable and inexcusable.  Yet, it is the consequence of a Senate Democrat vision that dramatically increases government, puts another $7 trillion onto the national debt, all the while sucking an additional $1.5 trillion in new taxes out of the economy.

Thankfully, one of the positives from the Senate budget debate is that our U.S. Senate went on the record on a number of other issues, producing mixed results.

Beyond the UN Small Arms Treaty vote, another of these was the vote of support by 56 Senators in favor of illegal immigrants having access to free taxpayer funded health care should they become legal under a future immigration reform bill.

Another vote that is good news for those who believe in free markets but bodes ill for those in the Obama Administration who hope to pass a carbon tax, as 53 Senators rejected this holy grail for the environmental left on a bi-partisan basis.

This past weekend was indeed momentous for not only the Senate Democrats being forced to actually do their jobs and lay out their budgetary vision for the country, but also for the 47 votes taken that put every Senator on record on many of the other critical issues facing our nation.

It is just too bad that Harry Reid was so ashamed of the product his Budget Committee produced that he attempted to hide their work behind a late night curtain.

 

 

God bless,

JohnnyD

Senator Jeff Sessions Catches Democrats in Massive Lie

From: The Last Resistance

by - Frank Camp - March 23, 2013

I. F. Stone said: “All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” Sometimes, simple words are all we need to define our lives. With everything around us layered with so much complexity, it is often the elegance of simplicity that cuts to the base of who we are. That quote, by Stone, simply and perfectly captures our government—more specifically, the Democrats.

For four years, we have waited with baited breath for the Democrats in the Senate to offer up a budget; and now that they have, I almost wish they hadn’t. Their budget is as absurd as Joe Biden’s…well, anything that Joe Biden does. Their budget proposes tax hikes of $1.5 trillion dollars, and balloons our deficit to an astounding size.

In case you don’t believe that the Democrats have cornered the market on talking about fiscal responsibility; courtesy of Powerline Blog, here are several quotes for your perusal and enjoyment:

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH): “Before I ask for your vote, I owe it to you to tell you where I stand. I’m for…a balanced budget amendment.”

Senator Mark Begich (D-AK): “It’s time to stop playing political brinksmanship with the budget and do what every Alaskan is doing – balance the budget.”

Senator Mark Udall (D-CO): “I’ve long gone by the saying, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. By restoring healthy and responsible spending through a reasonable Balanced Budget Amendment, we can begin filling in that hole.”

And, a quote from President Obama himself from July 2008:

“The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents — number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.”

With all of the hot air coming out of Washington Democrats about fiscal responsibility, you’d think that given the option, they would jump at the chance to balance the budget. Well, not so much.

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, in a movement on the floor, offered this to the Democrats:

“Mr. Sessions moves to commit S. Con. Res. 8 back to the Committee on the Budget with instructions to report back no later than March 22, 2013 with such changes as may be necessary to achieve unified budget balance by fiscal year 2023.”

This offer was a blank check, designed to give the Democrats free reign to do whatever they wanted to balance the budget. They could even have raised taxes in any way they saw fit, so long as the budget came out balanced. The Democrats–as I suspect Sessions expected–voted against this movement. Every Democrat, aside from one, voted against Sessions’ budget movement.

Given the popularity of balancing the budget, you’d think that a chance to take a crack at it with no limitations would give Democrats fits of joy. According to Hot Air, a recent poll

“…showed that 45 percent of Democratic voters think ‘balancing … the federal budget would significantly increase economic growth and create millions of American jobs.’ A sky-high 61 percent of independents and 76 percent of Republicans agree.”

Predictably though, the Democrats fell right into Senator Sessions’ trap. He–as well as anyone who has brain cells–knows that the Democrats have absolutely no intention of keeping a balanced budget, reducing spending, or lowering taxes on the middle class. They love to lie.

Democrats and the media have frequently called Republicans the “Party of NO,” but it seems that Democrats are the ones saying no. They were offered a golden opportunity to show just how fiscally responsible they are, and they rejected it. How strange. How odd.

This clever gambit made by Senator Sessions was brilliantly designed to reveal just who the Democrats truly are: liars. Never in recent memory has a Republican pulled something like this on the Democrats. Good on Jeff Sessions for artfully revealing what lies beneath the Democrats’ facade.


God bless,
JohnnyD

Obamacare: Projected Premium Increases by State

From: Heritage Foundation

by - Alyene Senger - March 18, 2013

Remember that repetitive presidential promise to “cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year”? As 2014 and full implementation of Obamacare get closer, it is crystal clear that won’t be the case.

Obamacare’s most onerous insurance regulations will directly cause insurance premiums to skyrocket, particularly in the individual and small group markets.

While there are many provisions that will increase premiums, two will have the most expensive impact:

1. Age rating restrictions. Obamacare limits variation in premium costs to a ratio of 3 to 1 based on age. But as Heritage research shows, “The natural variation by age in medical costs is about 5 to 1—meaning that the oldest group of (non-Medicare) adults normally consumes about five times as much medical care as the youngest group.” This means that under Obamacare, young adults will pay significantly higher premiums than they would have prior to Obamacare, and older adults will pay only slightly lower premiums.
2. New benefit mandates and cost-sharing rules. Heritage expert Ed Haislmaier explains, “The new law adds a number of health care services that insurers must cover and in some cases restricts the ability of insurers and employer self-insured health plans to impose limits on the amount of services patients can consume. This combination will drive up health plan costs and premiums for both individual insurance and employer-group coverage.” In addition, Obamacare prohibits cost sharing on many preventative services, which will dramatically increase utilization of those services—pushing premiums even higher.

There have been many different studies done over the past few years to model what premium increases are likely to be under Obamacare’s new rules. The majority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee worked with two Senate committee staffs to compile over 30 of them to make a list of projected premium increases by state:

Source: “The Price of Obamacare’s Broken Promises,” report by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Majority Staff, Senate Committee on Finance Minority Staff, and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Minority Staff, March 2013.

Many Obamacare advocates attempt to refute these premium increases by pointing to Obamacare’s generous subsidy scheme. But as the Hoover Institution’s Daniel Kessler points out, “This argument is misleading. It fails to consider that the money for the subsidies has to come from somewhere. Although debt-financed transfer payments may make insurance look cheaper, they do not change its true social cost.”

To that end, Obamacare’s exchange subsidies are estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to cost over $1.2 trillion over 10 years. And nobody should be surprised that this is an increase over the initial (2010) projected costs for these subsidies.

With the bulk of the health care law kicking in 2014, this is likely just the beginning of Obamacare’s broken promises.


God bless,
JohnnyD

Why has Obama's State Department Left an American Pastor Behind in Iran?

From: American Center for Law and Justice

By Jay Sekulow - Mar. 15, 2013 

On Monday, March 11, at a crucial moment, the State Department turned its back on an American pastor imprisoned in Iran.

In September of last year, Saeed Abedini – a U.S. citizen from Idaho – was arrested by Iran’s jihadist Revolutionary Guard when he was in Tehran helping build an orphanage. He was tortured, tried, convicted, and sentenced to eight years in Iran’s most brutal prison simply because of his Christian faith.

In other words, he’s an American hostage.

At the American Center for Law & Justice, we represent Pastor Saeed’s wife and two young children, and we’ve launched a national and international effort to pressure the Iranian regime to release Pastor Saeed. More than 100 members of Congress have issued strongly bipartisan calls for his release, spokespersons from the White House and State Department have called for his release.

Yet as welcome as those comments were, none of them were directly addressed to the Iranian regime. Because we long ago broke off diplomatic relations with Iran, American opportunities to speak to Iran are rare.

But in Geneva this week, just such an opportunity arose. On Monday, the United Nations Human Rights Council held meetings that directly addressed the human rights crisis in Iran. Before the meeting, the ACLJ launched a petition calling for international intervention on Pastor Saeed’s behalf, and more than 425,000 people from the U.S. and across the world signed in the weeks leading up the meetings.

The international community responded.

The Report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran mentioned Pastor Saeed by name.

The Council permitted our ACLJ affiliate, the European Centre for Law and Justice,  to address the Council on Pastor Saeed’s behalf twice.

Australia spoke out for Pastor Saeed.

Critically, the European Union – representing collectively the largest economic entity in the world --  called for Pastor Saeed’s release by name:

"We deplore the systematic harassment of members of religious minorities. We call on the Iranian authorities to refrain from such practices and to ensure respect for freedom of religion and belief. We call for the immediate release of prisoners of conscience, including Pastors Behnam Irani, Farshid Fathi and Saeed Abedini and the leaders of the Baha ́i community."

Roughly five minutes after the EU presentation – after a strong international statement on behalf of a U.S. citizen – it was the U.S. representative’s turn at the microphone.  Here is what the United States said about its imprisoned and tortured citizen, Pastor Saeed.  I quote in full:   
. . .Nothing. 

The U.S. said nothing about Pastor Saeed. Not one word. Yes, we condemned human rights abuses in Iran, and yes we even mentioned an Iranian blogger by name. But an American citizen? Imprisoned by the Revolutionary Guard? Nothing. No comment.

Yes, the Obama State Department has called for his release from the podium here at home – a brief statement only in response to inquiries from reporters. A White House spokesman made a similar statement in an answer to media inquiries. However, by refusing to petition for Pastor Saeed’s release before the UN Human Rights Council, our State Department acted like a lawyer who advocates for his client on the courthouse steps but won’t say anything at all to the judge.

On Friday, I will have the opportunity to testify before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the United States House of Representatives. I’ll be joined by our ACLJ Executive Director, Jordan Sekulow, and by Pastor Saeed’s heroic wife, Naghmeh. At that hearing, I will call – as many members of Congress have – for the State Department and White House to do exactly what it should on behalf of Americans held hostage in hostile lands: The president and Secretary of State need to engage this case personally – and to use their influence and the full weight of the U.S. government to secure their release. We owe them no less.

To be clear, this is not and should not be a partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have called for Pastor Saeed’s release, and if the Obama administration reverses course and begins to not only advocate for Pastor Saeed from the highest levels, but also matches words with strong diplomatic actions, then I will be the first to applaud its efforts.

But until then, there is only this sad reality: In March, when it mattered, the Obama administration left an American behind.


Gog bless,
JohnnyD

85yr. old Austrian, Lived Under Hitler, Says We’re Screwed!

America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away

From: Clash Daily

By: Kitty Werthmann

What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or will ever read in history books.

I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide – 98% of the vote. I’ve never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.

In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.

Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.

The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna, Linz and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.

We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group — Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.

We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.

Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family.

Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.

Hitler Targets Education – Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:

Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang “Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,” and had physical education.

Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.

My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it.

Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.

Equal Rights Hits Home:

In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.

Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children.. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

“Mercy Killing” Redefined:

In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.

The Final Steps – Gun Laws:

Next came gun registration.. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

No more freedom of speech:

Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.

Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.

After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria. Women were raped, preteen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn’t destroy, they burned. We called it The Burned Earth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized. Those who couldn’t, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witness account.

“It’s true..those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.”

America truly is the greatest country in the world. Don't let freedom slip away.

 

After America, there is no place to go.

 

 

God bless,

JohnnyD

Congressmen Demand DHS Explain 1.6 Billion Bullets Purchase

From: Freedom Outpost

 

by Tim Brown - March 19, 2013

 

Congressman Leonard Lance (R-NJ) has come out and demanded that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano explain why the Department of Homeland Security has been engaging in huge amounts of purchases of ammunition over the past year. Rep. Lance has called on Congress to get involved in ascertaining DHS’ stockpiling of ammunition which is enough to wage a 20 year plus war, which has most certainly caused a shortage in the public market.

 

“I think Congress should ask the Department about both of those issues and I would like a full explanation as to why that has been done and I have every confidence that the oversight committee ….should ask those questions,” said Lance.

“Congress has a responsibility to ask Secretary Napolitano as to exactly why these purchases have occurred,” added the New Jersey congressman.

Lance said the he was “concerned” and that he wanted to make sure that Americans continued to live in a country that was based upon freedom and individual rights. He also hoped that DHS would step forward and answer the question candidly.

Congressman Lance is not the only representative in Washington asking ‘Big Sis’ why she is purchasing large amounts of ammunition. We Are Change’s Luke Rudkowski interviewed Congressman Timothy Huelscamp (R-KS) at the 2013 CPAC on his decision to vote against the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and also asked they also discussed Obama’s Disposition Matrix and the large ammunition purchases made by the DHS.

When asked why DHS needs the type of armament that they do against the American people, the Kansas congressman said, “They have no answer for the question. They refuse to answer that. I’ve got a list of questions of various agencies about multiple things. Far from being the most transparent administration in the world, they are the most closed natured, opaque and they refuse to let us know what’s going on there. So I don’t have answers for that. Multiple members of Congress are asking those questions.”

“When it comes down to it, during the budget process, during the appropriations process, are we willing to hold DHS’ feet to the fire?” he asked. “We’re going to find out if we get an answer. I say we don’t fund them till we get an answer.”

The conversation pointed out the complaints about sequestration and added in addition to the billions of round purchased there are also $50 million new uniforms on order from the DHS.

Recently Forbes called for a “National Conversation” in light of DHS’ ammo spending spree. Ralph Benko writes, “It is utterly inconceivable that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is planning a coup d’etat against President Obama, and the Congress, to install herself as Supreme Ruler of the United States of America. There, however, are real signs that the Department bureaucrats are running amok. About 20 years ago this columnist worked, for two years, in the U.S. Department of Energy’s general counsel’s office in its procurement and finance division. And is wise to the ways. The answer to “why would DHS need such a vehicle?” almost certainly is this: it’s a cool toy and these (reportedly) million dollar toys are being recycled, without much of a impact on the DHS budget. So… why not?”

“Why, indeed,” he continues, “should the federal government not be deploying armored personnel carriers and stockpiling enough ammo for a 20-year war in the homeland? Because it’s wrong in every way. President Obama has an opportunity, now, to live up to some of his rhetoric by helping the federal government set a noble example in a matter very close to his heart (and that of his Progressive base), one not inimical to the Bill of Rights: gun control. The federal government can (for a nice change) begin practicing what it preaches by controlling itself.”

“Remember the Sequester?” Benko asks. “The president is claiming its budget cuts will inconvenience travelers by squeezing essential services provided by the (opulently armed and stylishly uniformed) DHS. Quality ammunition is not cheap. (Of course, news reports that DHS is about to spend $50 million on new uniforms suggests a certain cavalier attitude toward government frugality.) Spending money this way is beyond absurd well into perverse.”

As you recall, former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was criticized for posting on her Facebook page, “We’re going to default eventually and that’s why the feds are stockpiling bullets in case of civil unrest.” In the wake of that, last week the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), a lobbying organization which represents governors affiliated with the Democratic Party, started an ad campaign calling on Americans to sign a petition demanding Sarah Palin be denounced for “extremist” rhetoric.

DHS solicited in February for 240,000 rounds of ammunition and recently DHS put in a solicitation for 7,000 “personal defense weapons” that shoot 5.56 NATO ammunition that have “fire select” capability along with high capacity 30 round magazines. Remember these are for “homeland” use, not foreign.

Back in December DHS solicited for 250 million rounds of .40 caliber ammunition. In September, DHS solicited for nearly 200 million rounds of sniper ammunition. In August 750 million rounds of high power ammunition were also solicited and in March DHS solicited 450 million rounds of hollow point bullets.

Additional government agencies have also solicited for large amounts of ammunition. While it is expected that law enforcement at the Federal level would purchase ammunition, it is the large purchases in a short amount of time from an Marxist regime and a Federal department charged with “homeland security” to be purchasing this much and many of the rounds are hollow points.

DHS, via a February Associate Press article claimed that they were merely purchasing in bulk to save money and that these purchases were merely for training purposes, something I was also told last year by one reader who claims to have been in law enforcement. However, a former Marine, Richard Mason, told reporters at WHPTV, that he has his doubts.

The House just got through passing a Continuing Resolution which fully funds the implementation of Obamacare. I’m thinking it might be time against for Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) to bring on another filibuster to make the American people aware of the lack of transparency on the Obama administration’s part in acquiring these billions of rounds to be used in the service of homeland security. I’ll stand with Rand again. Will you?

 

God bless,

JohnnyD

Sequestration by the Numbers

Interesting e-mail from the U. S. Chamber of Commerce

John,

Earlier this month, the deadline to avoid sequestration came and went without Congress reaching a compromise to dodge across-the-board, arbitrary spending cuts.

The U.S. Chamber opposed the sequester cuts as bad public policy, and their negative impact is already being felt in certain industries. But comparing the $1.2 trillion cuts to our overall debt ($16 trillion) and wasteful spending that still takes place, makes you wonder if we couldn’t be more targeted about what needs to be cut.

Net interest payments to the debt alone will cost $5.41 trillion in the next ten years. So, we’ve come up with a few numbers to put this big idea into perspective.

In short, the sequestration adds up to cuts made haphazardly, in the wrong places.

Federal programs that didn’t necessarily need to feel pain were sacrificed at the expense of... calligraphers?

In the midst of budget season, we’re hoping that Congress can come up with a financial plan that will address our exploding debt, while getting our economy back on track.

But as we said last week, this spending battle has just begun.

We’ll keep you posted.

Best,


Rob Engstrom
Senior Vice President and National Political Director
U.S. Chamber of Commerce